What effect will 'The Singularity' have on trading?

I am reading Ray Kurzweil's new book, The Singularity Is Near and was wondering if anybody had any thoughts on this. He predicts the date of Singularity to be 2029

Singularity: The rise of super intelligent life, created through the improvement of human tools by the acceleration of technological progress reaching the point of infinity

An era in which our intelligence will become increasingly nonbiological and trillions of times more powerful than it is today—the dawning of a new civilization that will enable us to transcend our biological limitations and amplify our creativity. In this new world, there will be no clear distinction between human and machine, real reality and virtual reality. We will be able to assume different bodies and take on a range of personae at will. In practical terms, human aging and illness will be reversed; pollution will be stopped; world hunger and poverty will be solved. Nanotechnology will make it possible to create virtually any physical product using inexpensive information processes and will ultimately turn even death into a soluble problem.

entirely feasible. but why would anybody need to do any kind of work, let alone trading?

I mean, after the anticipated technological prognostications of the experts in the 1960s, I am;
working a 3-day week because technology does most of my work, leaving me with more leisure time to drive around in my private hovercar, that I use to visit the dry-cleaners where I left my all-in-one silver suit, so I can look smart for my 2-week holiday on the moon, where I can feast on a tasty 3-course meal comprising 2 purple pills.
Will they be able to cure baldness, or just find a more efficient head-glue? ( I am NOT bald )

Hey, this is a wind-up, no? I thought the world was going to end in 2012 according to the Mayan calendar.

Sounds like he's describing the world of Star Trek. But note that a whole new set of problems surfaced in that world, and that will most likely always be the case.

Damn Cardassians . . .

trendie said:

entirely feasible. but why would anybody need to do any kind of work, let alone trading?

I mean, after the anticipated technological prognostications of the experts in the 1960s, I am;
working a 3-day week because technology does most of my work, leaving me with more leisure time to drive around in my private hovercar, that I use to visit the dry-cleaners where I left my all-in-one silver suit, so I can look smart for my 2-week holiday on the moon, where I can feast on a tasty 3-course meal comprising 2 purple pills.
Will they be able to cure baldness, or just find a more efficient head-glue? ( I am NOT bald )

Hey, this is a wind-up, no? I thought the world was going to end in 2012 according to the Mayan calendar.

Click to expand...

This stuff is deadly serious. Did you see the Horizon doc the other night where the monkey's brain was wired up while it played a computer game? The signals were sent to a mechanical arm which mirrored the movements and copied the same game the monkey was playing on another screen.

After a while the monkey realised it didn't have to move it's arm anymore. Thinking was enough.

There are teams of scientists mapping every electrical impulse of our brains.

Mr. Kurzweil has a rather optimistic outlook for the human race and Singularity. I wonder if he's seen 'The Terminator."

http://singularity.com/qanda.html

rols said:

This stuff is deadly serious. Did you see the Horizon doc the other night where the monkey's brain was wired up while it played a computer game? The signals were sent to a mechanical arm which mirrored the movements and copied the same game the monkey was playing on another screen.

After a while the monkey realised it didn't have to move it's arm anymore. Thinking was enough.

There are teams of scientists mapping every electrical impulse of our brains.

Mr. Kurzweil has a rather optimistic outlook for the human race and Singularity. I wonder if he's seen 'The Terminator."

http://singularity.com/qanda.html

Click to expand...

Yes, I watched that episode of Horizon ... as they say believe nothing you hear and only one half of what you see.

The monkey playing the game may have been entirely genuine, but my view is that the 20 seconds clip that we saw was probably the best bit from a 20 day shoot. There was also that disabled kid that had his brain wired into the computer, and all he could master was the word "Da" which really isn't even a word.

If we do become more robot than man will our added bits come with a money back guarantee? And should the added bit be a brain part can we then blame every mistake we make literally on faulty wiring, and if so can we put in a claim for damages?

I require answers to these questions before I allow clever people to prod my lobes.

rols said:

This stuff is deadly serious. Did you see the Horizon doc the other night where the monkey's brain was wired up while it played a computer game? The signals were sent to a mechanical arm which mirrored the movements and copied the same game the monkey was playing on another screen.

After a while the monkey realised it didn't have to move it's arm anymore. Thinking was enough.

There are teams of scientists mapping every electrical impulse of our brains.

Mr. Kurzweil has a rather optimistic outlook for the human race and Singularity. I wonder if he's seen 'The Terminator."

http://singularity.com/qanda.html

Click to expand...

I saw it too. I found it most fascinating and it's a shame there aren't more documentaries about these evidently important scientific discoveries and evolutions on Belgian television. There used to be a programme called 'Future Fantastic' (I think it was on ITV) where a lot of concepts (that most people would consider sci-fi at it's best) were perceived attainable in the near future. I'm no expert on the matter, but it's nice to see other traders interested in similar matters. Speaking of which, scientists have managed to pull a "Star-trek"-feat teleportation recently, although obviously on a much smaller scale.

Simplicity

firewalker99 said:

I saw it too. I found it most fascinating and it's a shame there aren't more documentaries about these evidently important scientific discoveries and evolutions on Belgian television. There used to be a programme called 'Future Fantastic' (I think it was on ITV) where a lot of concepts (that most people would consider sci-fi at it's best) were perceived attainable in the near future. I'm no expert on the matter, but it's nice to see other traders interested in similar matters. Speaking of which, scientists have managed to pull a "Star-trek"-feat teleportation recently, although obviously on a much smaller scale.

Click to expand...

You guys know that I am into this kind of thing, but recently I have been trying to get back to basics.

Prices go up. they stay the same and they go down. How can we take advantage of this ? How can we make consistent profits ? How can we keep it this simple ?

Charlton

Probably more entertaining to read Arthur C Clark - I think the book was called Childhood's End. I am extremely sceptical of this sort of stuff - particularly the machine intelligence bit.

What is truly remarkable about Artificial Intelligence in computing is not the progress that has been made, but the progress that hasn't been made in 50 years of intensive research. It is so far off looking anything like human intelligence that it must be something of a disappointment to the early researches such as Minsky.

It is certainly true that AI techniques such as expert systems, artificial neural networks, genetic algorithms etc have had considerable success in some fields but their application remains limited to what might be called large niches. The holy grail of natural language processing still has a long long way to go.

It is not at all clear to me that lots more of the same, no matter how further refined, is going to lead to any sort of 'singularity'. Much more likely that some sort of new paradigm is needed and it's not obvious when or where that might happen.

To support my case I'd ask the question - How many programmers use AI in any form in their day to day work ? It would be almost a vanishingly small percentage. The same goes for day to day use of computer programs. This situation is not really changing.

just another example of 'mans stupidity' i believe......Einstien was right. look at the current state of affairs & scientists with too much time, money & resources come out with stuff like this.
kinda reminds me of the great search for 'dark matter' where after years of study & funding, millions ( if not more) chucked at it.....they finally come out with the great discovery & result of '' dark matter was quite hard to find''................after not finding any
j

Childhoods End - yes.
Also, the end of 2001 - A Space Oddysey, where the body is discarded to become a being that exists in energy form.
Actually, the late Isaac Asimov was a prolific SF writer who wrote almost exclusively about the robot/human divide.

However, while I am fanatically optimistic about scientific developemtns, we mustnt leave out the human component.

On the FAQ of the link that rols posted, it mentions the utopia of banishing hunger and poverty with nanotechnology.
Problem is, there are no technological barriers to simply feeding the world - right now.
It is a failure of nerve, failure of vision, failure of humanity, that allows 2/3 of world population to go to bed hungry.

What if we could build everything we need, with a magic machine, how will the government tax us to keep us under control? If everything became cheap, govts will find a way to make it expensive.
International politics is about imposing control - not helping.
For every £1 we give to developing countries in the full glare of publicity and beaming smiles, we take £3 or more in the dark shadows of anonymous offices and in secret as crushing development loan repayments.

How much technology do we need to simply behave like human beings ?

Living longer: isnt the raising of retirement ages a consequence of people living longer, this is right now?
And this is because most cant afford a decent pension!
People who live forever will have to pay tax forever.

I really like the idea, a sort of Johnny Mnemonic sort of world, with incedible knowledge at our beck and call, but dont leave out the human component.

Trendie,

Absolutely true - poverty and under nutrition are unquestionably political and economic problems or more accurately to use a phrase that has gone out of fashion, issues of political economy.

No new advances in science and technology are needed to feed the world's population - in a sustainable way. Science and technology can undoubtedly help greatly, but it's fundamentally a question of will not a question of knowledge,

Personally, I thought the Horizon program was pretty poor at looking at the science and just concentrated on a lot of highly speculative and sensationalist visions of what might happen.

All the Americans in the program seemed to be indulging in some sort of personal fantasy world where machines becomes god like and some hellish or eutopian outcome results. Don't really know why so many Americans start getting religious about technology but it feels more like the plot to hollywood movie than real science.

Having worked in related fields for some time I think there will far more problems with getting the technology to work than anyone anticipated and the outcome may ultimately not meet any of the expectations.

dcraig1 said:

What is truly remarkable about Artificial Intelligence in computing is not the progress that has been made, but the progress that hasn't been made in 50 years of intensive research. It is so far off looking anything like human intelligence that it must be something of a disappointment to the early researches such as Minsky.

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I agree with this.

There has been no great revolution since the first computer chipped its first cog. Computers are more powerful today, but so far that equates to nothing more than doing what it could originally but a bit quicker.

So, a computer in 20 years time might be 50 times more powerful than they are today … big deal. I guess we can play games a bit quicker then, or place a stock order in .1 of a second and not .5 of a second.

I guess the only main leap forward which many of us actually benefit from is the internet, but this is an invention based on old technology rather than something futuristic. Data is transferred through the phone line and reassembled at the other end – television has been doing something similar for years.

Very significant progress has been made in the last 50 years.
For example, pilot less planes and driverless vehicles would have been almost unthinkable 50 years ago,

The rate of progress is also accelarating as more powerful computers lead to faster discovery.
If Moore's law continues to hold computers in 50 years time will be 16 million times more powerful

jmreeve said:

Very significant progress has been made in the last 50 years.
For example, pilot less planes and driverless vehicles would have been almost unthinkable 50 years ago,

The rate of progress is also accelarating as more powerful computers lead to faster discovery.
If Moore's law continues to hold computers in 50 years time will be 16 million times more powerful

Click to expand...

Would you go on a pilotless plane ... nope.
Would you like to live under a airport that allows pilotless aircraft to take offf and land .... nope.
Would you like to sit in the back seat of a driverless car doing 120mph down the motorway . .. nope.

Moore's law may hold true so I guess that some serious gaming and dealing in the future.

Place an order in 1/16,000,000 of a second that's some serious dealing people!

Nope.
Nope.
Nope.

in2uxs said:

Would you go on a pilotless plane ... nope.
Would you like to live under a airport that allows pilotless aircraft to take offf and land .... nope.
Would you like to sit in the back seat of a driverless car doing 120mph down the motorway . .. nope.

Moore's law may hold true so I guess that some serious gaming and dealing in the future.

Place an order in 1/16,000,000 of a second that's some serious dealing people!

Nope.
Nope.
Nope.

Click to expand...

Do we already use automatic pilot on airplanes?
Do we already use cruise control on our cars?
Do we have cars that can park themselves (check out new Lexus).
Does Moore's law (approximately) hold until today?

Yes.
Yes.
Yes.
Yes.

jmreeve said:

Very significant progress has been made in the last 50 years.
For example, pilot less planes and driverless vehicles would have been almost unthinkable 50 years ago,

The rate of progress is also accelarating as more powerful computers lead to faster discovery.
If Moore's law continues to hold computers in 50 years time will be 16 million times more powerful

Click to expand...

I can't argue that huge advances have been made in many areas in the application of technology, including robotics. IMHO this is more due to better understanding what we have already than anything radically new.

One example is computers in mathematics. They are fantastic at providing numerical solutions, but have been unimpressive as an aid to pure mathematics - which requires intelligence. My knowledge is very limited here but wasn't the solution to the four colour problem the first new theorum in which computers were integral to the solution. And that was only a few years ago. They're going to have to do a lot better than this if there is going to be some sort of Vulcan mind meld between organic and machine intelligence in a 'singularity'.

firewalker99 said:

Do we already use automatic pilot on airplanes?
Do we already use cruise control on our cars?
Do we have cars that can park themselves (check out new Lexus).
Does Moore's law (approximately) hold until today?

Yes.
Yes.
Yes.
Yes.

Click to expand...

I have been trawling through Kurzweil's site and I urge anybody with a passing interest in this subject to read the following. It's worth the effort I promise you.

http://www.kurzweilai.net/meme/frame.html?m=1

For those with their eyes wide open there are many gems for the taking.

Face it, the guy is a nut job.
Interesting site indeed.

TWI said:

Face it, the guy is a nut job.
Interesting site indeed.

Click to expand...

Mmmmm.

http://www.kurzweiltech.com/aboutray.html